How to cut a pomegranate

It’s one of those things that seems impossible until you actually take a couple of minutes to run through a step-by-step guide. Keep reading and you’ll find out how to cut a pomegranate – minus the mystery and mess.

What is a pomegranate?

A pomegranate is a fruit. It’s typically round-ish with a tough, leathery, red or yellowish skin.

The inside of the fruit is filled with small edible seeds called arils, which are surrounded by a bitter white pith.

This is why we ask the question: How do we cut a pomegranate? We want the seeds to be separated from the tough skin and bitter pith.

Pomegranate seeds are known for their tangy, sweet flavour and are often used in cooking, baking, and juicing.

Pomegranates are rich in antioxidants and have been associated with various health benefits, such as reducing inflammation and lowering the risk of heart disease.

Native to the Middle East, they’re now grown in many parts of the world, including the Mediterranean region, California, Arizona – and right here in Australia.

Step-by-step: cutting a pomegranate

Okay, before I go through the steps I want you to think about two things.

First, look at how a pomegranate is arranged on the inside. You’ll see the seeds clustered into segments with a pith core and pith running between each segments. A little like a mandarin.

Second, I want you to keep in mind that you use the knife only about 10% of the time and the other 90% of the time you are using your hands.

So while we talk about “cutting” a pomegranate, we’re really mostly pulling it apart with our hands after making some shallow cuts.

That’s right, you don’t actually cut into the pomegranate as that will destroy some of the seeds.

Okay, so being aware of these two things should make the whole step-by-step process a lot easier and make a lot more sense.

What you’ll need

Apart from the pomegranate, you’ll also need:

• 1 small sharp knife
• 1 bowl cold water.

Let’s start

First, make sure your pomegranate is clean by washing the pomegranate and drying it off with a towel.

Step 1 – Using a sharp knife, make a shallow cut in a circle around the base of the pomegranate.

Step 2 – Peel off the crown section with your hands while leaving the seeds intact.

Step 3 – Remove and discard the crown section of the skin.

Step 4 – Identify where the white pith runs through the fruit. You should see slight ridges along the outside of the pomegranate where the pith is located and the pomegranate clusters or segments start and end. There are usually about 5 or 6.

Step 5 – Using your knife, start making a shallow cut along one of those ridges from top to bottom. Do not cut into the seeds, you want to cut only through the red pomegranate skin.

Step 6 – Repeat for each ridge.

Step 7 – Use your fingers to gently pull the pomegranate apart along the cut line you made. The fruit should naturally break into segments.

Step 8 – Remove the white pith core from the centre of the fruit.

Step 9 – Use your fingers to gently pull the pomegranate apart along the cut line you made. The fruit should naturally break into segments.

Step 10 – One segment at a time, hold the pomegranate over a bowl and use your fingers to gently loosen the seeds from the pith, aiming for the seeds to fall into the bowl while the pith and skin remains in your hand.

Step 11 – Once you have removed all the seeds, discard the pith and skin. Scoop out any pith that has fallen into the bowl with the seeds (it should float to the top) and discard.

Step 12 – Rinse the seeds in cool water and drain them in a colander.

Watch the video

Still confused? More a visual person?

Watching the video will help get you confident about how to cut a pomegranate.

You can find the video in the Recipe card:

Jump to Recipe

How did you go?

With any luck, you have a lovely bowl of pomegranate seeds like the one below.

What next?

Now you have cut your pomegranate and have the juicy pomegranate seeds, what are you going to do with them?

I can recommend these options:

• just eat them by the handful
• make some pomegranate juice (just whizz seeds in blender and put through a sieve to extract the juice)
• turn your pomegranate seeds into homemade pomegranate cordial (similar to grenadine)
• find more great ideas in my list of wonderful pomegranate recipes.